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Please Help :)

Masoody

Masoody

Masoody

Associate
Joined
8 Oct 2009
Posts
86
Hello there fellow OcUK members, this is my first post and i only recently found out about this site, and how good it is. I did this post as im not a computer expert i know how to build a computer but thats about it, im not much of a knowledgible person when it comes to all those little goodie numbers.

Now i would just like some advice/opinions if its not too much to ask please about the things im about to buy and if the right component of its type, as in if its the right CPU Fan to get, or rather something cheaper/more expensive that will do the same job.

I have a :

-Q600 @ 2.4ghz, will be overclocking to 3.4ghz if i can manage it :)
-4GB Ram
-P5N-E SLI Motherboard (Chipset nForce 650i)

Now..i will be doing a massive upgrade on my computer, these are the things im looking to buy, all from over clockers by the way :)

Asus GeForce GTX 285 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card

- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-190-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1341

Corsair HX 1000W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply

- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-012-CS

Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case

- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-102-AN

Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer CPU Cooler

- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-000-TQ

As you can see the new case/cpu cooler is to provide some nice cooling for overclocking and extreme gaming (1680x1050 resoloution)

Question 1 : Now i will be looking into getting 2 of those GTX 285's, should i get them now..or wait for the new 300's to come out or...i dont know :P Price budget will probably be £400-500 for 2 Graphics cards.

Question 2 : Is that power supply sufficient enough to keep what i have and will get for a few years to come? as in maybe 3 GTX 285's in the future? and a much better processor?

Question 3 : Is that fan a good one to buy for what i have? i have heard good reviews about it, but thats about it.

Thank you all for reading this, and i appreciate any feedback given.

P.S Sorry for posting this on this section, but i didn't know where else to post it. By the way when i order all these things, how much will be the P+P, i heard 20 pounds for all of it!? :O
 
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Most of that up seems fine. Ofc the PSU is way overkill for the set-up currently, but I gues you want the extra elbow room.

The only thing is graphics. I'd hang fire for the time being unless you went the HD 5850 / 5870 route, as currently the GTX 285 is overpriced for what it is.
 
I would not go sli with that motherboard as you will only be running at 8x pci-e 1.0 speed on both the cards. I would get a 5850 or a 5870 which are both faster than a gtx285 and come with dx11.
 
Magnum_Force said:
Most of that up seems fine. Ofc the PSU is way overkill for the set-up currently, but I gues you want the extra elbow room.

The only thing is graphics. I'd hang fire for the time being unless you went the HD 5850 / 5870 route, as currently the GTX 285 is overpriced for what it is.
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Thank you mate, most people tell me also to wait with the graphics cards until something better for the same price comes out or it drops in price. Thing is i dont know how long to wait, 1-2 months or 5 months :P i dont know. Oh and i have heard bad things about ATI :) was told to stay away from them, and since this is my first time building a rig, i dont want to take any risks.
 
TheRealDeal said:
I would not go sli with that motherboard as you will only be running at 8x pci-e 1.0 speed on both the cards. I would get a 5850 or a 5870 which are both faster than a gtx285 and come with dx11.
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Dont really know what that means, ill look up on it. Thanks mate. As previously stated i was told to stay clear from ATI, who knows maybe this community will change my mind. Oh about the motherboard, as soon as i get my second card, of which ever card ill be getting, which is on Jan (its when the next pay check comes) ill be getting a new motherboard. Appreciate the advice mate.
 
Masoody said:
Thank you mate, most people tell me also to wait with the graphics cards until something better for the same price comes out or it drops in price. Thing is i dont know how long to wait, 1-2 months or 5 months :P i dont know. Oh and i have heard bad things about ATI :) was told to stay away from them, and since this is my first time building a rig, i dont want to take any risks.
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Well you may as well stay away from nvidia then lol as they are on the same level as ati. People who tell you to stay away from ati are just being stupid and i would not listen to them as they obviously know little about gpu's.
 
Hi, and welcome to the forums.

I'll try and answer your questions in order, then give you some feedback on your build.

1) I suggest not going for the GTX 285s, they are heavily over priced for what they are. A much better choice would be an ATI 5850, these cards are a good chunk faster than a GTX 285, cost less and use less power. I realise you cannot add two of these together on your motherboard, but I will address that in a minute.

As for the GT300, you could wait - it will certainly be a fast card. However, if you want the system now then the AMD option is better and Nvidia's release date is expected to be November at the very earliest.

2) That PSU is massive. Really, really big. You could happily get this PSU and run 2 high-end graphics cards with no worries. Plus the 750 is a newer, more efficient and generally better model.

I wouldn't look towards a 3 graphics card setup as the benefit of this is pretty small (especially considering the GPU/PSU cost and heat issues).

3) That cooler is good, but this is better - well worth the extra few quid. Furthermore, considering how much you are planning to spend on graphics, you may want to give your CPU a cooling treat and invest in this fantastic cooler.
- However, you only need a good CPU cooler when you overclock your CPU, I will address this in a second.


The main problem I see with your plan is that you have a Quad Core CPU and a 650i motherboard. These boards are terrible for overclocking quad cores, you would be lucky to get near 3.0GHz. Also bear in mind that a high-end SLI/crossfire setup will be so fast that it will CPU limit a system with a stock(or near-stock) Q6600.

I would suggest upgrading your motherboard as part of your upgrade, this board is a great overclocker. Also, it runs Crossfire x8x8 so you can happily run two 5850 graphics cards together should you feel the need.

Also
Oh and i have heard bad things about ATI was told to stay away from them, and since this is my first time building a rig, i dont want to take any risks.
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What you have heard is mis-information, these ATI cards are great and beat the current Nvidia offering with a big stick.

Hope this is of some help.
 
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This site is amazing, thank you very much. Ill definetly be buying that CPU Cooler then, is it not too big by the way with the Antec 1200 case? I heard some people with a Antec 900 case had to take out there top 120mm fan in order for it to fit properly. The motherboard, i guess i will have to get a new one as that is what seems to stick out as a sore thumb, will be getting the watercooler later on in the future, once i learn how or rather am more confident in building rigs. Ill look into getting ATI if it truly is what people say.

By the way, is my power supply really too much? Do i only need 750 with all my components? i was told even 850 wont be enough which was my original plan.

Anyone know how much this will all cost to order?

Appreciate it lads.
 
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Masoody said:
By the way, is my power supply really too much? Do i only need 750 with all my components? i was told even 850 wont be enough which was my original plan.
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You won't believe how much your power your PC actually needs, have a look at this power supply calculator. I threw in your prospective rig with the Q6600 @ 3.4Ghz, 2 x ATI 5870s (5850s weren't available) and the rest of a normal system, It gave me a total requirement of 429W at load.

The 750 will be enough, you could actually happily get away with the 650W. I only chose the 750W because it is more efficient.

As for the total cost, this is my tally:

816.png


Also, the antec 1200 is a cave. You could declare it as secondary residence if you wanted. There will be absolutely no issues with the cooler, infact the Antec 900 (or 300 for that matter) can happily accommodate that Corsair cooler or any large air cooler with no problems.
 
Thank you mate, if i were near you i would give you a hug. Ill go with the 850W then incase of future Hard Drive addons. You just saved me 50 quid :P

By the way, which is i know there is many opinions...lets say my budget is £300 for 1 card, which is the best card for me to get. I mean like truly worth the 250 or 300 or 220 quid for the card, as previously stated ill be getting the second card with a new motherboard on Jan.

Thanks mate.
 
Masoody said:
Thank you mate, if i were near you i would give you a hug. Ill go with the 850W then incase of future Hard Drive addons. You just saved me 50 quid :P

By the way, which is i know there is many opinions...lets say my budget is £300 for 1 card, which is the best card for me to get. I mean like truly worth the 250 or 300 or 220 quid for the card, as previously stated ill be getting the second card with a new motherboard on Jan.

Thanks mate.
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It's my pleasure to help, m8.

For the absolute best card for £300, the answer is this. However, this is two reasonably fast graphics cores stuck together in one card, not a single extremely fast core (like the 5870) and this presents problems in translating the raw power of the cores into gaming performance advantages. The total performance is better than a 5870 but the downsides are: It uses much more power than a 5870, it requires games to be specially optimised to run at full speed (ie both cores being used) and you don't want to add a second card in the future because the performance gains are tiny (plus heat/power constraints become huge).

With this all said, I wouldn't recommend the 5870 either. Not that it isn't a good card, in fact it is fantastic. However it's problem is that it's little brother the 5850 runs 87% as a fast and only costs £200 ( a full £100 less!). I suggest going for the 5850 when you make the upgrade and buy a second one at some point in the future when you feel the need for more gaming power (though 1 5850 should monster through all 2010 games at 1680x1050 res).
 
Masoody said:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-148-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1502 - Can i use this in my motherboard i currently have now? and upgrade my motherboard when i buy a second one?

Cheers
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Aye, you certainly can. It will run absolutely great in your current board.

Out of interest, which PSU will you run it with ? The new 850W or your current one? If your current one, what is it's brand and model name? The 5850 isn't the most power hungry card, but I will need a half decent supply to power it.
 
If you can afford it, go for 2 5850s, they should be the best value for money when buying ATi's latest cards.

Also, people love to exagerate power requirements around here. An 850w PSU is overkill for practically everything.

Your proposed PC will use around 100w idle and about 250-300 watts load.

Not that I'm saying get a cheap low wattage PSU, but don't let people convince you in to getting an expensive huge wattage PSU because they say you'll need it.
 
Masoody said:
850W budd. The Corsair http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-019-CS. Wondering if ATI is much different to NV :) We will see i guess, im going to take your advice and buy a 5850 and then buy a new motherboard when i get a second one.

This site is fantastic, as well as its supporting forum members.
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Who ever told you to avoid ATi, go and crotch brick them.

ATi have had a bad repuation for having a bad reputation if that makes any sense.

People have badmouthed and moaned so much that people new to computers take what people say about ATi as fact.

Fact is, if you're going to have problems, the likely hood is that you're just as likely to get issues with an nVidia card as you are with an ATi card.

Currently nV can't match ATi on price and performance as well as features.

They've been doing extremely well lately and it's in your best interests to buy the best value.

Don't you think if they were THAT bad, there'd be more than "ooh, ATi, they're bad"? There's be proof of this nonsense, which there isn't.
 
Masoody said:
People that give me advice are students at university, who it seems dont really know much of what there talking about.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-148-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1502
This 5850, should i get this or? I dont know much about graphics card overclocking, so id rather not steer that way. Should i buy this one as its the cheapest and best for the amount it gives, or a factory overclocked one?
Click to expand...

Buy the cheapest 5850, they're all the same, and never dismiss overclocking.

No matter how much you think you won't be interested in it, you will. It's inevitable.

You can not escape the overclocking bug. :D
 
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